Real Estate Trends – Chelmsford, Massachusetts

Introduction:

We are back for our most recent real estate market trend report. Thanks for joining us once again, or if this is your first time reading one of these reports what we do is examine a city or town in Massachusetts or New Hampshire and evaluate its current real estate market trends. We do this by looking at the municipality’s year over year change in the real estate market and evaluate what those observations might mean for that market moving forward.

Market Trends in Chelmsford, MA – February 2014 and 2015:

The Chelmsford, MA market has appeared to plateau since last year. The average listing price was up and the average sales price was down. Both changes were just a tic. The days on market were down somewhat. Inventory was up a bit with 9 sales in February of 2014 and 14 sales in February 2015.

Average Listing Prices:

The first thing we always look at is the average listing price. For Chelmsford, MA in February 2014 the average list price was $336,511. This increased to $338,514 in February 2015. That gives a pretty much meaningless increase of 0.60%.

Average Sale Prices:

The next thing we look into is the average sale prices. The average sale price for Chelmsford, MA in February of 2014 was $333,722 and in February 2015 that was down to $327,102. That gives a slightly larger, but still fairly meaningless decrease of 1.99%.

Average Days on Market:

Finally we shall look at the average days on market, is a measure of how long it takes for a house to sell in this market. For Chelmsford, MA the average days on market in February of 2014 was 94.44 and the average days on market for February 2015 were 64.07, for an encouraging 32.16% decrease. However, as we have seen many times before in our previous posts for Abington, Bedford, Seekonk, Belmont, Topsfield, Canton, Dracut (Condos), Hamilton, Wakefield, Amesbury (Condos), Dracut #2, Taunton , Reading, Stoughton , Wrentham, Stoneham, Dedham, Nashua, NH , Tewksbury and Brockton (Multifamily), Lowell (Multifamily), Acton , Foxboro , and Pembroke outliers in the data can skew things. This again is the case for Chelmsford, MA. In this case there was a very high days on market house in the 2014 data. In 2014 there was a house with 247 days on market. This was almost as much as the next two highest combined. When removing that from the calculation you have the remaining 8 houses have an average days on market of 75.38, a pretty significant decrease. Using this adjusted number we see the decrease fall to a slightly more modest 20.93% decrease. This doesn’t change the general observation it only makes the noted decrease less dramatic and is slightly more in line with the stagnant nature of the other metrics.

Chelmsford, Mass Summary:

The Chelmsford, Massachusetts real estate market has appeared to stagnate a bit since last year. The flat listing prices and small decrease in sale prices support this. The slightly more meaningful decline in the days on market seem to indicate that Chelmsford may have just flattened more than it is poised for any great decline. It is hard to say if the market has reached a temporary high point, if this is just a blip and we will see more gains or if this is actually a precursor to a decline. In summary if you are looking to sell a house in Chelmsford, MA now you should expect to get about the same amount for it than you would have last year. You also should be able to sell for the same price range but maybe a little fast than before.